Such gaming devices can form, for example, reel-spinning slot machines which are of electronic design and in which a plurality of rotating reels are represented in a rotating manner on a display unit with various gaming symbols and winnings are output if the reels with the same gaming symbols come to a stop along a winning line. In addition to the display unit, which represents the actual game, for example, in the form of the specified reels, at least one further display unit is often also provided which displays additional game information such as, for example, the winnings achieved, the game stakes and the like. The specified display units can be embodied, in particular, in the form of screens in order to be able to display electronically the specified contents of the game and game information, wherein here, in particular, a plurality of screens can be arranged one above the other in a housing which has an overall tower shape. Below the display units or screens it is possible here to provide, for example at stomach height of the player standing in front of the gaming device, an operator control panel with operator control elements such as coin slot, winning token printer and control keys such as control stake keys or a start/stop key which can be activated mechanically or in some other way by sensor and can serve, inter alia, to put rotating reels into operation or stop them. In such gaming devices, additional screens are not only installed in order to be able to display supplementary game information such as, for example, other gaming possibilities of the device or the status of other bets, but also in order to be able to allow different games to run at the same time, with the result that during less exciting sections of a game the player can be additionally entertained by the respective other screen.
In recent times, it has been proposed here to provide the screens or display units with touch panels in order to control the device by touching the display or individual display elements themselves, for example to activate or move display elements on one of the screens, for example to cause the representation of a roulette wheel to rotate or to stop the representation of a rotating reel. Document U.S. Pat. No. 7,479,065 B1 shows a reel-spinning slot machine device in which a touch panel is positioned above the display unit for displaying the reels, which can be embodied in the form of a screen or an actual mechanical reel arrangement, in order to be able to control the rotation of the reels by touching said touch panel. The controller assigned to the touch panel is embodied here in such a way that a device user can cause the reels to rotate correspondingly with a wiping finger movement along the touch panel. A sensor system which is assigned to the touch panel senses the specified wiping movement here, which movement is then converted by the controller into corresponding actuation of the reel drives or corresponding actuation of the screen display.
Further examples of gaming devices with touch screen operation are known from documents AT 006 316 U1, EP 1 953 632 A2, US 2004/0229693 A1 or US 2009/0069070 A1.